


Blue Matter

by HoloXam



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: (or are they), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, As you do, Ghost Drifting, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mako Mori (cameo), Missing Scene, Newt's blatant deathwish, Nightmares, POV Newton Geiszler, Panic Attacks, Penpal Era, Pre-Canon, Shatterdome Era, Slow Burn, The Drift (Pacific Rim), canon compliant nosebleeds, sexual content implied by cringey space metaphors, slight substance abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 01:49:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17214743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoloXam/pseuds/HoloXam
Summary: Hermann nods, a slow, single incline of his head. His brows knit together again, and though the distance between them is too large for an accurate assessment of finer facial movement, Newt is willing to swear on his absent mother’s life that the guy doesn't blink once while maintaining a dizzying laserbeam of sharp, scrutinising eye contact.“Don't fall out the window, Dr. Geiszler,” says Hermann, and it's blunt and close to mockery, but pretty good advice actually. If only it had been delivered with the smallest hint of amusement, then maybe Newt's cheeks wouldn't feel like they were melting off his face right about now.“Don't tell me what to do, man, I’ll fall if I damn well please,” Newt says and shuts the window.[A story about Newt and the Drift]





	1. Pre-Drift

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone has to do one, don't they? A Newt-and-Hermann through the ages, I mean.  
> I am _very_ excited to finally share this story. It's been bugging me since July, I think, when it started out as a "drabble", and it quickly grew and grew and grew, and it's the largest fic I've ever written. Thus, I am terribly nervous about getting it out.
> 
> _Acknowledgements_  
>  Thank you, Lvslie, for your betaing and enthusiastic commentary, and for giving me the final shove to woman up and finish this motherfucker. <3  
> Thanks to Tutselutse for listening to me whine about the increasing length, you're seriously blessed with patience.  
> The title is lifted from Frank Ocean's [Pink Matter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiUa-zBQFAs).
> 
> It should also be said that, in writing this fic, I read up on the theory of relativity and, by some miracle, suddenly understood how gravitational waves are formed. 
> 
> UPDATE: For those interested, I made a [Spotify Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/holoxam/playlist/7GVV640MhAEKOcrw18JxTs?si=ZscMFfsRR3G6j-1P7kRlyg) with the music for this story. 
> 
> Ah. Enjoy!

_Blue used to be my favourite colour_

_Now I ain’t got no choice_

_\--_

 

## Breaking Point

_(January, 2014)_

_This is not a drill,_ Newt’s mind helpfully supplies.

It’s not. It’s really not.

He’s staring helplessly at his phone, typing up passive-aggressive emo entries on facebook, only to delete them word for word without ever posting them. He’s had a bad day. Bad two weeks. Bad half-year. Whatever. Thing is, it’s spilling out of him, so obvious that his friends (are they really his friends?) are starting to notice his rigid shoulders, his unhappy glance.

It’s – it’s just that there’s this emptiness in his head, this weird _longing_ for something.

He feels _so. alone._ in his own head. Meaningless. Always has been, really, in-between obsessions.

It always goes like this: he plunges into something interesting head first, and works works works, completely engulfed, but at some point the tide ebbs out or he needs to come up for air, and it feels so _empty._ It is as if he has been out of touch with reality – which, seeing as reality recently has turned into a waking nightmare, what with the giant monster emerging out of the goddamn _ocean,_ well, could be worse – but now, without any reason that Newt can point to, he has been forced out of the confinement of his own head, and everything around and within him is crashing fast. His self has once again become too far removed from what people on the outside regard as _‘normal’,_ and few things has him so on edge as pretending to be something other than who he is.

And damn him, if this realisation isn’t just what he needs at two in the morning.

Tomorrow, he’ll get up, force-feed himself a liter of coffee, take a shower, and speed-write the results section for his article. Talk to his colleagues about the weather. Pretend.

Right now, he wants to disintegrate into molecules and just sort of be an unconscious part of the universe. Not think, not do _anything_ again, _ever._ Honestly though, _why exactly_ did anyone let him go into academia? Because he’s good at it? He could have been anything. Maybe he could have been good at something else.

Newt throws his phone to the floor and turns his bed lamp on. Breathes. Eyes the bundle of handwritten pages on his nightstand, and proceeds to read Hermann’s last letter once again.

There’s something calming about Hermann’s words, something liberating. Reading him often feels like what Newt’s own thoughts could have been, had someone gone through the motions of organizing them properly. Not so much in the science department, that is true, but there are other things. It’s … hard to define. Newt can tell that they are different as night and day, and yet there is something so overwhelmingly familiar in Hermann’s wording.

Newt is not exactly sure how he’s ended up sending actual letters across the Atlantic, but now that he’s doing it, he’s annoyed. In the beginning, it was keeping him sane, alright. He had been thrilled beyond measure to _stumble_ upon someone able to keep up with him, someone who didn’t need every little detail of his bullet train of thought explained.

And Hermann - Hermann does more than that. He’s a challenge, a puzzle, he makes Newt fight for it. Hermann doesn't dismiss him, doesn't question his credibility or his work because of ridiculous prejudice against appearance, age, height. He’s passionate - _oh, so goddamned passionate_ \- about his work, about the future, about the _fascinating_ implications the attack on San Francisco has for the natural sciences as a whole. He writes with professionalism and precision and yet with an odd, dry sense of humour, and Newt _needs_ it, like he has never needed anything before.

That’s the catch, though. Every day he doesn't receive word from Hermann has him on edge. He feels isolated to the point of screaming. He looks at his friends and colleagues, and feels so incomplete that he’s amazed he’s even keeping it together anymore. He wants— dammit, he wants to meet this guy. Wants to talk to him on a daily basis. Maybe he just wants to go for coffee with him and sit in companionable silence and communicate through a telepathic bond of shared sentiment - hell, Newt could totally go for that, it wouldn't be half bad.

He wants to know about Hermann's day, wants his reactions to Newt's impulse driven shopping of vinyl records, wants to know what he eats. When he goes to sleep. If he listens to music and watches TV, if he goes on holiday, and where. If he has a girlfriend - or a boyfriend, perhaps. Does he like Harry Potter? Is he a wine guy or a beer guy? Does he button his duvet covers inwards or outwards? What does his voice sound like?

Would he sit next to Newt and hate the world with a burning passion, whenever Newt needs someone to agree with him?

Newt has a feeling that he might - call it a hunch or wishful thinking, but there's something there, definitely something.

Pulling his laptop up on the bed from the floor, Newt starts drafting his reply.

 

## Line Dancer

 

 

 

>   
>  _  
> Dear Doctor Gottlieb,  
>  _
> 
> _I feel the dire need to take this correspondence digital, the downtime is killing me. Would you be amenable to continue our discussion of the kaiju anteverse via snapchat?_

 

 

Lol, no.

 

 

 

 

 

>   
>  _  
> Hey Hermann,  
>  _
> 
> _Can I please follow you on instagr_

  
  
no.

 

 

 

 

 

>   
>  _  
> Hermann, you motherfucking boss  
>  _
> 
> _I need to be able to tag you in physics memes, or at the very least send them to you. Please provide social media contact information. This is purely out of professional courtesy and for scientific reasons._

 

 

Nnnnnnope.

 

 

 

 

 

>   
>  _  
> Herr Doctor,  
>  _
> 
> _My mind requires the presence of your attention and words at all times, I am_ going insane, _why are you half a world away, I want to be mentally connected with you, sometimes I feel like you are inside my head, and when you’re not I don’t even_

 

Get a grip, Newt. Or a diary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _  
> Hi Hermann, what’s your steam ID …  
>  _

 

 

 

 

 

> _  
> Doctor Gottlieb Sir, why don’t we quit this and just skype  
>  _

 

 

 

 

 

> _  
> Hermann, sometimes I go out to the shore and stand there, and it’s funny just knowing that you  
>  _

 

 

 

 

 

> _  
> Dear Hermann,  
>  _
> 
> _Yo man, I was wondering if_
> 
> _Are we friends? I feel like we might be friends_

 

… Goddammit. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _  
> Dear Doctor Gottlieb,  
>  _
> 
> _I came across your facebook profile when trawling through the Nature page, and I have been staring at your profile picture for 200 years. Is it weird if I add you as a friend?_

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _  
> lkdvlkfdkjlsdfjkljkdsl  
>  _

 

 

 

 

 

> _  
> Dear Doctor Gottlieb,  
>  _
> 
> _I sprained my wrist in a lab-related incident, and all this handwriting is doing nothing for a swift recovery, please direct any future correspondence to ngeiszler90@gmai_

No, Hermann would insist on the MIT one for data security probably, also this is a _lie_

Newt decides not to mention it.

* * *

It’s two weeks later, when Newt (finally) receives Hermann’s reply. He is frazzled and late and un-showered, and almost knocks the mailman over in his rush to get out the front door, and he’s halfway out in the rain when he does a double-take and returns to the mailboxes of his apartment building.

“Hey, man, got anything for Geiszler?” he asks. The mailman grunts and digs into his bag, and Newt’s stomach is suddenly filled with butterflies. Out comes an envelope, dark blue, with _Dr. Newton Geiszler_ scrawled on the front in a handwriting that Newt has learned to recognise anywhere. Newt yanks the envelope out of the man’s hand and he doesn’t even care that he’s probably grinning like a lunatic.

“Sweet! Thanks!” he says, shoving the envelope into the inner pocket of his leather jacket and making for the door. “Later, dude!”

“There’s also-” the mailman begins, but Newt waves him off.

“Stick ‘em in the mailbox, burn ‘em, I don't care. Bye!”

The steady grey prickle of rain is hardly noticeable when he emerges from his building. Half-running to his bus stop, he croons _Please Mister Postman,_ and he even makes it onto the bus last-minute, warm and soaked and overjoyed, with a little piece of sunshine pressed to his chest.

The letter proves a distraction throughout the day. There are several occasions of Newt pulling it out of his breast pocket, thinking better of it, and stuffing it back again - reading Hermann’s letters is a leisure activity, not something to be done among the acids and test tubes of the lab. _Patience, Newt. Save the best for last._

He makes it. Makes it all the way home and out of his boots, before he all but mauls the by now rather wrinkled blue envelope and drops it over his shoulder, settling cross legged on the couch and unfolding the precious pieces of paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _  
> Dear Newton,  
>  _

Hermann writes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _  
> This may be my last letter. Don’t be alarmed: Enclosed at the bottom, you will find my email address. I would prefer to shift our line of communication over to a digital one, because however charming I find the classic epistolary style, its anachronistic and frankly time consuming execution leaves something to be desired. The postal service simply does not deliver in efficiency, and I fear its ultimate demise is imminent - not only is it costly, it is wound up in the fate of trans-atlantic flights (or, that is to say, our correspondence is). In addition, the risk of important information getting lost due to human error is simply too high …….  
>  _

 

Newt stares. _Important information._ The fuck kind of euphemism is that? The fuck are you trying to convey here, Dr. Perfect Cheekbones? And, honestly, how uncanny is this?

_You wanna speed things up, Hermann, is that it?_

Newt flops onto his back and yanks one ankle over the back of the couch, eyes never leaving the page. A grin is spreading steadily from his mouth to his ears and down to his toes, resulting in a squirm and some air kicking, and he’s crumpling the paper a bit.

They’re obviously in sync. So maybe…

Maybe Hermann also sits up late and rereads half a year of correspondence. Maybe Hermann also feels weird. Maybe Hermann _wants_ to snapchat with Newt, like, deep in his core, but is too much of a professional to ask? Or maybe not. But he does spend like half a page on making excuses for, slash explaining, why he’s decided to give Newt his personal email.

 

 

 

 

> _However charming I find the classic epistolary… leaves something to be desired..._

So basically, _this is romantic as fuck, but I wanna talk to you NOW._

“Oh my _god,”_ Newt says, and presses hands and letter and glasses and all to his face. He can email Hermann _right now._ Hermann might answer. _Right now._

Newt snatches his laptop, and is abruptly faced with a new challenge:

What the hell is he supposed to _write?_

 

_(At night in the coming years, Newt scrolls and scrolls, emails and words blurring, black on white fluorescent screen. Gentle frases, pointed words, furious and wonderful bursts of anger and joy, make Newt feel warm and whole, and no, oh_ no, _this is bad._

_‘I think you’re in love with your perception of me, and not who I am as a person,’ not-actually-a lover told him once. And maybe that had been true - maybe it still is. But what_ is _the difference between who we are, and who other people_ think _we are, if we’re not, say, actively lying about it? There's definitely some philosophy of science, or just some good old plain philosophy_ waiting _to answer that question. He might ask Hermann about subjectivity and perception and the knowable universe and the nature of their relationship - only he won't, because Hermann might pull a Mean Girls on him and say, “why’re you so obsessed with me?”_

_And Newt doesn't have an answer to that.)_

* * *

 

Newt meets Hermann Gottlieb in the flesh in 2017 on a freezing afternoon at a conference in Stockholm, organised by the newly established Kaiju Science Society. He’s cool and collected right until about half an hour before the first session ends, at which point everything begins to _shake._ By the time people start filing out of the lecture hall for coffee, Newt has been reduced from some sort of person with opinions on things to 20 million nerve endings just sort of jittering and a pair of white-knuckled hands gripping the table in front of him.

“Geiszler, are you alright?” asks some guy Newt vaguely recognises from the academy, and he nods, more or less unseeing.

“Yeah, dude, defo,” he says airily, “Completely fine.”

“Kaiju Blue is a nasty thing,” the guy says and pats him on the shoulder. Newt swears inwardly, because he _wanted_ to hear that talk, so of course that’s when his focus went to wither and die a sad death in favour of silent panic.

“Just gimme a minute,” he says, and whatshisface politely books it.

Newt wrestles his hands away from the table and clothes himself in confidence. Standing up, he rolls up his sleeves, presses his glasses up from where they tend to slide down towards the tip of his nose, and hooks his thumbs into his pockets to keep his hands from wandering. _Showtime._

Finding a cane-wielding mathematician in a crowd of K-scientists proves harder than first anticipated, however, and there’s only a few minutes left of the refreshment break when Newt hears a british accent outside the window he has taken refuge by.

With trembling hands, he forces the window open and pokes his head out.

“Hermann!” he yells at the crowd of smokers mingling below. Five heads pick up to look at him, but Newt only has eyes for the face that first frowns in confusion, and then goes slack with recognition.

Newt waves and flashes a smile. “Break’s almost over, catch you over lunch?”

Hermann nods, a slow, single incline of his head. His brows knit together again, and though the distance between them is too large for an accurate assessment of finer facial movement, Newt is willing to swear on his absent mother’s life that the guy doesn't blink _once_ while maintaining a dizzying laserbeam of sharp, scrutinising eye contact. Not wasting time on something trivial such as breathing, Newt stares back, feeling caught in the headlights and _talked to._

_You, you are him, not what I’d expected, you're exactly as I thought you'd be, you know what I think about in unguarded moments late, late at night, you are what I think about in unguarded moments, Newton? Hermann? Dude?_

“Don't fall out the window, Dr. Geiszler,” says Hermann, and it's _blunt_ and close to _mockery,_ but pretty good advice actually. If only it had been delivered with the smallest hint of amusement, then maybe Newt's cheeks wouldn't feel like they were melting off his face right about now.

“Don't tell me what to do, man, I’ll fall if I damn well please,” Newt says and shuts the window.

He doesn't know how often Hermann is going to return to that statement in his memories, not yet; doesn't realise the bone-chilling truth to it. He watches Hermann raise both eyebrows and turn his head away, and feels confused, foolish, and angry – but about _what,_ he is not entirely sure.

Lunch is a disaster, and the rest, as they say, is history - or _silence,_ quite literally, because of _course_ Newt has to ruin everything in shakespearean proportions and transform his own adoration into spite, Hermann’s indifference into resentment. He tells himself it’s for the best, because spite and anger will keep him going, and if he weren’t so _angry,_ the sheer disappointment and heartache of it all might just break him.

* * *

 

Poetic justice will have that he and Hermann are both assigned in Hong Kong in 2020.

It is a million years later, and yet it feels like they broke it off just yesterday. Knowing full well how pathetic it is to still be hung up on some misunderstood perception of what dimensions their relationship had, Newt tries to be civil and leave him alone. It doesn't work out.

They gravitate towards each other, always.

_Every goddamn day; it’s never-ending._

Newt has never been good at editing himself in real-time, and Hermann always takes _offense._

It’s weird: For years, Newt has had actual nightmares about facing Hermann Gottlieb in the flesh again; the subconscious insistence that they are _perfect_ together, and that all he wants is to have Hermann _back,_ clashing with the conscious and _goddamn rational_ knowledge that they are _not,_ that Hermann fucking Gottlieb is the _worst._

It’s painfully obvious that Hermann doesn’t _like_ Newt. He tolerates him, at best; ignores him at worst. And that’s the real silence. Absolutely fucking intolerable.

The first time Newt manages to wrestle an emotional response out of Hermann, makes him _yell,_ makes him smash Newt’s favourite coffee mug against the linoleum, makes him march out of the laboratory they’ve ended up together in - that is the first time in _years_ Newt feels some sort of relief.

The next morning, Hermann is back in the lab, taping up a yellow divide across their shared work space.

“Biology,” he says pointedly, gesturing with his cane towards the side of the room where most of Newt's equipment already resides, and then towards the side where Newt himself is currently standing. “Theoretical mathematics. Now shoo.”

Newt grins. He knows bait when he sees it, and this, _this shit,_ sanity, integrity, and _everything_ be damned, he’ll bite. He will make it his personal mission to toe and transgress that line, to spill over into Hermann's space as much as he possibly can, if only for the satisfaction of witnessing Hermann's raw fury.

Swiftly, it becomes routine: Approach, yell, repel, repeat.

Gradually, it turns into something more.

* * *

The end of the world is a lot of work.

Newt’s hair stands on end, and he doesn’t see his own floor for weeks at a time. He brushes his teeth in the lab, survives on coffee, vending machine-snacks and leftovers. He stares at Hermann half the time. Tries to figure out if he hates him or loves him.

As time runs out, they are synchronised, but not joined. They fall into step, feed each other lines to get out of meetings. At briefings, they fold their arms and cock their heads and frown at budget cuts in tandem. They never address this. Newt thinks that maybe it’s like those people who grow to look like their pets; that maybe, if you never leave the lab except to pass out, you’ll end up looking like your labpartner.

It’s driving him crazy. He knows, he _knows_ there’s something.

It’s there on blatant public display when his eyes lock with Hermann’s intense, tired ones across a crowded mess or in an elevator, populated by jaeger pilots and their resentment.  
  
Newt stands at the top of the stairs, lost; the mess is a sea of people, unfamiliar and vaguely unwelcoming. It’s hardly an original scenario, not to him. Standing there, feeling awkward, feeling incomplete in an oblivious crowd. The easy companionship of the dining only serves to amplify the roar in the hollow place in his mind. Newt doesn’t _do_ easy companionship; feels inadequate when he’s not the center of attention. He’s okay with being on the receiving end of judgemental glares – thrives in them, even.

What he’s not really okay with is the idea that _Dr. Geiszler is eating alone, because Dr. Geiszler doesn’t have any friends._ No, he’ll definitely prefer solitude to that. He should turn around and take his dinner back down to the lab. He should have brought something to read. He should have waited. _This_ is part of the reason why he does not keep regular eating hours.

The longer he stands there, the more awkward it gets - how the hell can he not know _anyone?_ (The answer, of course, is easy: he doesn’t really care to.)

Just as Newt is about to turn on his heel and leave, a familiar head picks up at the far end of the mess. Sitting a little apart from a group of people Newt vaguely recognises as J-techs, shoulders framed by the ridiculously large hood of his jacket, Hermann looks Newt in the eyes and even with Newt’s limited range of sight, the quick glance to the left and the roll of Hermann’s eyes is clear as day.

Newt bites his lip and looks around, then back to Hermann. It is almost too easy to traverse the hall, plop down across from Hermann, and start a nonsensical argument about nothing in particular. So easy to have Hermann call Newt a nuisance and a fanatic, so easy to feel at home.

Hermann makes a face at Newt, and suddenly it’s there again, that invisible _thing,_ a line of data points of increasing number, blurring together into a line of connection, a line of wordless communication.

It’s always there, outside the lab.

It’s in the air between them when Hermann quietly sits down next to Newt on the roof of the shatterdome and stares at the horizon. In the hand awkwardly patting Newt’s shoulder, as he puts elbows on knees and buries his face in his hands.

An unspoken sentiment, a feeling of unity. _These people,_ it seems to whisper, with the air of an eye roll. _You and me,_ it seems to imply.

But in the lab, there’s a line of yellow tape across the floor.

A rift wider than the entire Atlantic Ocean, on the other side of which Hermann is doing his strange dance between his chalkboards and his computer.

Newt prints out a sign that says _stop plate tectonics_ and tapes it to the door, but doesn’t feel like explaining the joke. Hermann lifts his eyebrows and says, _Newton. That’s impossible._

Which makes the punchline even worse. Newt tells him to go fuck himself.

## Plane Crazy

_(Febuary, 2024)_

Out of pure spite toward yet another budget cut, Newt gets drunk by himself on the lab couch and binges kaiju footage on youtube. He’s convinced they know _exactly_ what they’re doing, the magnificent, majestic murder-machines. If only there was a way to know _for sure._

_Wait._

_…machines?_

Their adaption to fighting the Jaegers is too fast and too specific for Newt to write it up to evolution. It’s an arms race, alright, but there’s no way in hell it’s _natural._ He downs the remainder of his drink, and fumbles with the cable adaptor to the projector. He blasts his Category I through III conference poster up on the presentation screen, and starts cross-referencing kaiju evolution with Jaeger tech and battle styles. His hands are shaking, so he mixes another drink and slurs into his voice recorder.

Hermann strolls in a little later for a session of merry midnight mathematics or something like that. Onibaba is fighting Coyote Tango on the projector screen, but Newt is not really watching.

“Dude, I have a theory,” he says, at the same time as Hermann says, “Are you _actively_ _trying_ to impair your own mental state?” and Newt laughs and laughs, because one, he’s literally working, and two, he’s not sure it can _actually_ get any worse, these days.

“‘M doin’ a comparative study of kaiju design and jaeger design, and I’ve reached the inevitable and unfortunate conclusion,” he hiccups, vocal chords protesting and sending him off to the upper octaves. “Siddown, and lemme blow your _fucking_ mind. In, like, the worst way.” He gestures unevenly at the cushions beside him. Hermann walks closer but remains standing.

“Newton, are you drunk?” he asks in a voice that definitely isn’t bordering on soft, because Hermann fucking Gottlieb doesn’t _do_ soft, not now and not ever. He’s got to be the hardcore moral vertebral column for the both of them. He’s the magnetic North Pole (if you disregard the steady drift towards Russia - on the other hand, he really gets on with those Kaidonovsky types, so fuck it, keep Russia), and Newt is a magnetised needle on a piece of styrofoam in a bowl of water, spinning, spinning, spinning, until Hermann orients him with the magnetic felt lines coming out of those goddamn eyes and his weird and wonderful mouth, or, like, a cold hand on Newt’s burning forehead. The point, _the point_ is, Hermann is still, at rest, a universal constant, immovable, absolute.

_“Newton,”_ Hermann says, and he’s really close up, all of a sudden, and Newt blinks in confusion. 

“Sorry, kiiinda spaced out and lost it there, man, let me just rewind my train of thought for a sec and get back to you. Also yes, I am drunk,” he says. Hermann sighs and shakes his head, and, unfortunately, lets go of Newt’s face.

Carefully, he lowers himself down beside Newt on the couch, and props his leg up on the table. Newt squints to get the focus right, before he throws himself into the explanation of his hypothesis with well-placed gesticulation.

“So, the kaiju. I’m preeetty sure they might actually be engineered somehow, and that’s why they’re able to adapt so quickly to—”

“What are we drinking?”

“—our way of fight—what?”

“What are we drinking?”

“Oh. Um, surgical alcohol. And lemon iced tea. Don’t worry, it’s diluted and everything.”

“Perfect,” Hermann sighs, and grabs a cup off the table. “I _had_ very much hoped to come down with some internal bleeding this week.”

Newt thinks the answer to his question is found right there in Hermann’s dejected sarcasm. Hermann pours for himself and stirs carefully with a paper straw, and Newt can’t for the life of him imagine why anyone would ever even _think_ about hating this guy. He’s so goddamn punk, sometimes.

“Wanna hear about the kaiju?” Newt asks.

Hermann’s face screws up, and he takes a sip of his drink. “Not _really,”_ he says. “I’ve already had a _dreadful_ day.”

_Me too, man,_ Newt thinks. _Me too._

The next few hours are kind of a dark blur, until the lights come on and Hermann’s cane slams down on the table next to him. It’s 8 am, he’s in the lab, and the end of the world waits for no man’s hangover.

“Get to work,” Hermann demands, poking Newt in the side with the end of his cane until he sits up. His vision is swimming, and he’s not sure if he’s ever felt so nauseous in his entire life. There’ll be no forays into the squishier sciences today, no sir. He looks at Hermann with his best impression of puppy eyes, but apparently Hermann’s empathy only extends to shoving a bottle of water and a paper bag containing a semi-fresh bagel at Newt, which, okay, seeing as Newt is entirely to blame for his own situation, is actually a pretty awesome move.

“Thanks, man,” he manages, voice so rusty it hurts.

_“Please_ don’t mention it. Just get back to work,” Hermann says, and retreats to type loudly on his keyboard.

Newt listens to his voice recording, throws up in the trash, and types up last night’s findings. (It’s not as much of a mess as he’d feared: score one point for drunk science.)

Then he calls the J-Tech who has promised him a new collector for his ICP-MS and yells at them, threatening to get Marshall Pentecost on the phone, until they promise to move him up to top priority. Which is… unbearably vague, but better than nothing.

“I wanna be dead,” he announces, after a ten minute-break spent dry-heaving over the sink.

Hermann’s scowl says something like, _careful what you wish for,_ and it might mean anything from _we’re all going to die by kaiju,_ to _I’ll bloody well kill you myself._

The slump in Hermann’s shoulders conveys something along the lines of _me too._

* * *

_(December 27, 2024)_

“You look absolutely appalling,” Hermann notes in a rare moment of concern, or whatever he’d classify this display as in his neat little incomprehensible filing system of a brain. In any case, Newt’s too tired to actually give a shit. “Did you sleep in your clothes again, or did you forego sleep entirely?”

“Good morning and fuck you too, Hermann, you’re not exactly looking _sharp_ yourself,” Newt mumbles, and continues to fiddle with the focus of his microscope, not taking his eyes of the piece of kaiju skin he’s got in there. He can sort of _feel_ Hermann approaching, so he reaches for his coffee mug and wiggles it in Hermann’s general direction. “You holdin’ or what?”

Hermann makes a disgusted sound, so maybe he’s grabbed the mug with mold in, by mistake. Newt leans back from the microscope and looks, but nope, no mold, just coffee stains. What’s this guy’s _problem?_

“What?” he snaps, and finally looks at Hermann. He _is,_ though. Looking sharp, that is. And holding a thermos. How he manages to look sharp at seven in the morning after having worked non-stop for two weeks (Newt keeps count), is a mystery the K-science department sadly won't be solving today. Because financing. And priorities.

“Did you _sleep?”_ Hermann asks again, and Newt rolls his eyes, which is a mistake, because ow. He pulls off his glasses and rubs his eyes instead.

_“Yes,_ Mom, I got a whole five and a half hours, courtesy of Lightcap _et al.,_ twenty-seventeen B, which, _my god, any_ doctor with respect for themselves should prescribe for insomnia. Can I _please_ have some coffee?”

Hermann mercifully obliges and fills Newt’s mug with sweet, sweet, steaming, foul-smelling, freshly brewed coffee. He proceeds to pick up the Lightcap paper from the top of the pile on Newt’s desk, and frowns.

“Why are you reading up on the drift?” he asks. Newt watches him thump through the paper, pausing here and there to run his eyes over Newt’s highlights and penciled notes. Newt grins. This should be good.

“You know how we talked about the kaiju being some kind of sentient? Like, how they specifically go for the populated areas? How they’ve modified themselves to fight us better, each time they’ve come back? How they _have_ to be aware how the Breach actually works? How the DNA shows that they’re _clones?”_

Hermann is staring at him, and _damn,_ Newt had no idea his eyes could be so big. Seriously though, could he _not_ think about Hermann’s eyes so much? Like, is this a kink? Do other people have eye-kinks? Or ankle-kinks? He’s been sizing up Hermann’s ankles _a lot._ He wants to touch them, run his fingers over the skin, maybe just kind of hold on to them, which - Which is weird, really fucking weird. Newt should get out more, probably. While he still has the chance, because, the if look on Hermann’s face and the German profanity he whispers under his breath when he draws up the exponential curve fit to his data is anything to go by, it won't be long before nights out on the town simply won’t be a thing anymore. Not that they’ve been much of a thing in the last few years. There's really only been science and drunk science and hung-over science, and the occasional screaming. _Anyway._

“Aaanyway. Look at this, man.” Newt pushes the microscope back, and pulls his laptop across the table. He unlocks its sleeping screen with his fingerprint, and pulls up a pdf file he hasn’t closed since he received it. “This is an inventory of _all_ kaiju samples in the PPDC’s possession. Wait, why am I telling you this? We’ve been receiving kaiju samples for weeks. They’re,” he looks around, and sighs. “Piling up. But, bear with me man, this is super cool. Tomorrow, from kick-ass K-science officer Kimberley Snyder of the recently shut-down  City-of-Angels-Shatterdome, we’re getting a handful of specimens. And you know what one of them _is?”_

He turns to look up at Hermann, and takes a sip of his coffee for dramatic effect. Hermann’s brows are knit tightly together, and he has narrowed his (gorgeous) eyes significantly.

“Dr. Geiszler,” he practically growls. Is he shaking? Is he completely unable to contain his excitement? Has Newt gotten under the skin of Hermann fucking Gottlieb with this extremely cool prospect of sciencing the shit out of saving the Goddamn World?

Prooobably _not._

“Naw, dude, one of me is definitely enough for your frayed nerves, even I wouldn’t be so cruel. Nor do I like competition. Also, they haven’t gotten that far with human cloning, and the ethics are—”

“Get - to - the - point,” Hermann says through gritted teeth. Is he _honestly_ not on board?

“Okay, okay! Relax, man. The point is that there’s a brain fragment. Kim _swears_ it’s still alive. If we could hook it up with a neural bridge, we could—”

The face Hermann pulls has Newt cutting himself off, because _wow,_ he obviously knew that Hermann had enough malice bottled up to cause a minor ecological crisis if it were ever let out - he’s thought a lot about that on sleepless nights because it’s unbearably attracting - but he might switch that descriptor over to major catastrophe, right here, right now. Somehow, Newt manages not to squirm.

“What?” he asks, and _no, nope, that didn’t sound broken at all, you’re all good, Newt._

“That,” Hermann snarls, “is _the_ most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. Are you taking your medication?”

“If I take my— what the fuck are you on about, _Hermann?”_

“Well, are you?”

“YES!”

“I see. This is just your everyday insanity, then. Who, hypothetically, should attempt such an experiment? No, no, don’t tell me. It would have to be yourself, of course, wouldn’t it?”

Newt splutters. “Well, who _else_ should it be? _You’re_ obviously not up for the task, even if it could tell you _exactly_ how to work the breach. A _jaeger pilot?_ Who do we have on base that, one, would agree to do that on short notice, and, two, would be able to pick up the first thing about anything _useful?”_

Hermann snatches the thermos from where he put it on Newt’s desk.

“And the first jaeger pilots? Does your thick skull house _any_ memory of what happened to them? Did you read the twenty-fourteen paper?”

Newt clenches the handle on his mug so hard it hurts. He has. As a matter of fact, he read it the instant it came out.

“The jaegers don't have _brains,_ Hermann. This is entirely different.”

“This is _madness,_ Newton. Not to mention absolutely _idiotic._ Did they actually let you into academia willingly?”

Never one to back down from an opportunity to argue at full volume, Newt allows the academic discourse to deteriorate into a shouting match that leaves his head pounding, and his regard for Hermann’s delicate ankles in absolute shambles.

Why can’t Hermann see that the science is incredibly sound?

* * *

_(Kaiju-Human-Drift-Experiment, Take One, January 8, 2025)_

_“Eeeee-fficiency and prrrrogress, is ours once-a more, now that we have the neutron bomb,”_ Newt sings to himself through gritted teeth. He’s keeping himself still going strong on a cocktail of sleep deprivation, caffeine, sheer determination, and white-hot _fury_ towards each and every person he has talked to in the last 24 hours. Military fucking morons the whole fucking lot of them, the good Doctor Gottlieb _very much_ included, unable to as much as _think_ about solving anything in any other way than blowing it up. Throw a thermonuclear warhead at the Breach, sure, that’ll solve _everything._

Newt has seen people die from Kaiju Blue poisoning. Newt knows what radiation sickness looks like. Newt has been standing in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and felt his vision go white. So excuse him, if he’s not a _fan._

_Kill kill kill kill kill the poor, kill kill kill kill kill the poor…_

The End is Nigh, and he knows it. First, they’re going to drop that bomb, and it’s not going to work for shit. Then Hermann’s predicted kaiju will swarm from the Breach, and if he’s lucky enough to not have been killed by a tsunami or radioactive fallout, he will be poisoned by seawater, or eaten by a goddamn kaiju. Fucking hell, they’re all gonna die. Newt drops his screwdriver and it clatters loudly on the floor. He glances quickly over his shoulder, but the lab is still empty and quiet. The digital clock on the wall tells him it’s 04.15.

_Breathe, dude. Focus. Second verse._

_“The sun beams down on a brand new day, no more welfare tax to pay,”_ he sings, and picks the screwdriver back up.

This is going to _work._ He’ll… talk to the kaiju, or whatever, and find out how to close the Breach. BAM, _that’s_ rock’n’roll, he’ll be an honest to god _hero,_ and, better yet, Hermann will learn when to _shut up._ And if not, well…

Newt won’t be around to see it. Aw, _fuck._

“I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m literally gonna die,” he whines, screwing his eyes shut and clutching at his knees. He can't stand the thought that Hermann might be right. The only consolation to that particular prospect is that, if Hermann _is_ right, he will find exactly zero pleasure in saying I told you so. So all in all, it’s a win-win situation. In theory.

What a fucking disaster. How, again, is this his life? He always figured he would die in traffic.

At ten past five, Newt decides that he needs another cup of coffee, and that if this is the last thing he does, he wants to see the sky first. Cup of black, bitter, instant brew secured (best you can get on the premises - _way_ better than the sludge from the buckets in the mess they have the audacity to call coffee), Newt shrugs into his jacket and turns to leave the lab. Almost out the door an impulse hits him hard, and he marches back to Hermann’s desk, yanks out the fourth drawer, and steals _(borrows!)_ Hermann’s lighter and emergency cigarettes. Nicotine, when inhaled slowly, works as a relaxant, he’s pretty sure, and Newt really needs to calm his tits the hell _down,_ and also, screw Hermann, the complete bastard, he deserves to have his smokes stolen. Doing this supervised could have been all kinds of awesome, but alas, the shit Newt is willing to do for science. And humanity as a whole. Anyways.

A shiver runs through him, as soon as he emerges on the Shatterdome roof; it’s not raining right now, but before the day is over it’s going to pour. Newt walks to the edge of the roof, pulling his jacket tight around him, and stares out into the darkness. His hand tightens around the pack of cigarettes in his pocket. He hasn’t had one in… eight years, almost. Not since—

No, he better not go down that road right now.

He pulls the packet out and flicks it open with his thumb. His right hand holds the coffee mug still, so he pulls out a cigarette with his teeth and feels awkward because, while this objectively _looks_ cool – in theory, when other people do it – it feels like a pretend. Fake.

The mug makes for an awkward protection against the wind, but he manages to light the cigarette and blows out the first puff of smoke without inhaling.

Something about sucking lighter-fluids into his lungs doesn’t sit well with him, and that is _ridiculous_ both in the context of being fine with sucking smoke into one’s lungs, and in the light of what he is going to attempt in, say, fifteen minutes.

He tries and fails not to think about it.

The second time, he inhales, and it makes him cough violently.

“You are not a smoker,” a voice observes behind him, and Newt jumps and turns to see Mako Mori coming out of the darkness.

“Don’t sneak up on people like that, Mori-san,” he says, and takes a step away from the edge. “I almost fell off the roof.”

“Apologies, _Dr. Geiszler,”_ she replies, and walks up beside him, casting her glance out across the water. Newt winces at the form of address, looks down on the cigarette in his hand and feels increasingly ridiculous. He takes a drag and holds the cigarette out, offering.

“Maybe if you keep your feet  on the ground and out of your mouth, you will not fall?” Mako says, her lips pursing somewhere between a smile and a frown.

“Look, I’m _sorry,”_ Newt says, at once dizzy from the swirl of nicotine in his bloodstream. It feels like he _is_ falling. “About toda— yesterday? Last time.”

“Mr. Becket is not a bad person, Doctor,” she says, and accepts the offered cigarette.

Newt takes a long sip of coffee and watches her, out the corner of his eye. She holds the cigarette between her thumb and index finger, and it looks unnatural, like she’s doing this as much for show as he is.

“You ever feel like people don’t want you to reach your full potential?” he asks before he has time to think better of it. The sky was supposed to help, but time is running out, and he’ll take any validation he can get right now. Mako stiffens.

There is a pause, where she takes a drag and hands him back the cigarette.

“No,” she says, breathing out.

“No?” Newt takes back the cigarette with stiff fingers and brings it to his lips. The smoke looks ghostly in the dark, and he chases it upwards with his eyes to where it becomes one with the heavy cloud cover. “Life is short, Mako, especially now. We can wait around to see the End, and we probably don't have to wait _that_ long, or we can blow ourselves up at the bottom of the ocean, knowing that at least we _did_ something. Would you want to stand around and watch it all fail, safe until the ceiling finally caves in on us, and we have nowhere to hide anymore? Just because someone thought you couldn't handle the necessary modus operandi?”

“I don't—” she starts, but Newt is gathering momentum now, resolve finally coming in again, and he can _taste_ the oily workings of the machinery waiting back in the lab.

“I mean, I get why they're afraid, but desperate times, desperate measures, am I right, or am I right? Look at them, Mako, look at them strapping that godawful nuclear fucking warhead on the back of Striker— _Eureka,_ my _ass—_ thinking that _their_ lives will buy the rest of us—what? More _time?_ No fucking way, dude, it's dumb, it's cowardly, it's _unscientific,_ it's—”

“Newt,” Mako says, gripping his shoulder as he sways on his feet, and looking into his eyes. “Do not fall. You can do much more than falling.”

Newt leans heavily into her hand for a second, while he stares into her eyes. _She_ gets _it,_ he thinks, and for a moment that's all that matters – her eyes betraying a rage to match his own, a crack in Mako Mori’s smooth steel exterior, sadness and fury beaten into purpose and determination so strong it only needs a tiny push to get the ball rolling.

Or maybe that's just Newt projecting onto a teenage girl with badass hair and engineering skills that’ll put anyone to shame, but even if it is, who can blame him? He could have been a lot like Mako, if he’d been cool and able to throw a punch at 18.

“I saw the blueprints for your Gipsy-upgrades,” he says and swallows. “Smooth, seriously—”

“Don't. Fall,” Mako says again as she lets go of his shoulder. “Go to sleep, or you will freak out Dr. Gottlieb.”

“Oh, shit, _Hermann,”_ Newt says, stealing a glance at his watch. The plan won't work if Hermann shows up, and he has been keeping earlier and earlier hours because he too has incompatible work and sleep and worry schedules. “I gotta— I got something I have to do, so, um, see you around, Mako, good talking to you, let's catch up— later, yeah? Good talk, good talk, give wonderboy a slap on the back from me, won't you?”

Newt flicks the butt of the cigarette away. As he skips for the elevator, the first fat drops of rain spatter on the steel roof, and he ducks out of the downpour and into the tube, frantic as he pushes a button to bring him down, down, down to the lab, down to his fate.

The ride is long and slow, and when his thoughts inevitably stray to Dr. Hermann Smug Bitch Gottlieb, he’s almost certain he hates him.

And that's fuel enough for Newt to do what has to be done.


	2. Post-Drift

## Space Oddity

The moments after the second drift are frantic, too frantic for Newt to even try to comprehend the extreme dose of _Hermann_ he’s just taken, or to try and sort through which of the impressions that are Hermann and which are kaiju, and if there’s anything of himself left still. He feels high, euphoric and mortified at the same time, and all he can do is _cling_ when they have hauled themselves into the helicopter, and Hermann yells for the pilot to take off _now, take us back_ now _, as if all kaijus of the anteverse were on your heels._

They’re in the air in practically no time.

 _Kaijus,_ Newt thinks, dazed, and leaning his sticky cheek on Hermann’s parka-clad bicep, _that’s not the proper plural form, I think._

 _Literally no one cares,_ a voice supplies, one he’s pretty sure he recognises as his own. _Look, Doctor Hermann Bitch, the One and Only, is gripping your thigh._

 _He damn sure is,_ Newt thinks, and does his best not to bounce the leg that Hermann’s left hand has taken a white-knuckled grip on.

“Hermann!” Newt yells over the sound of the helicopter, and angles his head so he can get a look at Hermann’s face. “If we don’t— if we’re too late, I just— I mean—”

“Not now, Newton,” Hermann says. His right arm curls around Newt’s neck, and his hand comes to rest in the back of his head. It’s hard to tell which one of them is doing the shaking. Hermann pulls him close and speaks directly into his ear. “When we get back to base, you run like hell, understand? I’ll have none of your waiting around. Just run.”

Newt grabs a fistful of parka. “Okay,” he croaks, finally giving up and letting his legs bounce freely. “Better not pass out and die, then.”

Hermann’s grip on him tightens.

“You won’t.”

“What if they’ve already set off the bomb?”

“They haven’t.”

“What if they know we’re coming? The drift is a two-way street, and the kaiju, she _knew me,_ she—”

“Newton.”

“She found me, Hermann, one single person _underground_ in _fucking Hong Kong,_ and she found me, _she knew me,_ and—”

“Newton, look at me.”

Hermann’s words are loud and sharp. Newt lifts his head, and Hermann lifts his hand from Newt’s thigh to cradle his face in both hands instead. His eyes - windows of the soul and all that - his eyes still do not betray a flicker of fear or uncertainty, instead they’re ablaze with something like trust and reassurance. They shine with the lights of the burning city far below.

They search each other for a moment, and it’s like before, but a million times stronger. There’s no doubt this time around; unspoken words are passing through the space between them. It’s nothing but a whisper compared to the drift, yet it’s somehow more overwhelming to experience it in real time.

And then suddenly Newt's mind explodes in blue; memories his and not his are bubbling and bursting against the inside of his skull, coming faster and faster and faster. Strings of numbers and formulas winding around each other like stylised DNA, strange thin limbs simultaneously 3D printing a body - _his_ body, but it has _so many arms -_ and printing a mind, and Hermann's eyes, burning in a deep dark blue (they weren't always blue - were they?), and far, far away, his mother sings a tune to the little brother he’s never had, and there's a planet burning, so he’s got to find another one and _soon,_ and if that isn't just the human condition, really, and he’s writing a letter, with his right hand, with his left hand, and there's a widening ocean between them, and it's two o’clock, and Newton is passed out in his lap no pun intended, and there are _HERMANN’S EYES and their burning blue and—_

“Imma be sick,” Newt manages, and Hermann, apparently anticipating it, is letting go of his face and turning him, making sure that nobody’s shoes are hit by the bile Newt chokes out on the helicopter floor. (Not that it would be the most disgusting thing Newt’s boots have seen today. Nonetheless, he appreciates the gesture.)

 _Maybe eat something first, next time you attempt to drift with a kaiju,_ Newt muses while he heaves and wills his heart and mind to just _relax_ for a second, and Hermann grunts as if he’s heard.

“There’ll be none of that, thank you,” he says. He dabs the corner of Newt’s mouth with a (hopefully) clean side of Newt’s own handkerchief, narrows his eyes, and then presses the cloth to Newt’s nose. He’s bleeding, apparently.

Newt nods, and he’s barely collected himself before they reach touchdown and Hermann shoves him towards the door.

 _“Run, you idiot,”_ he hisses and Newt does. As he sprints for LOCCENT, gasping for air and heart hammering, the first thing to surface in his mind is the thought that this is the part where humanity is wiped out only because _someone_ has never run a mile in his life. _I hate this I hate this I hate this I’m too late I’m_

“Fuck off,” he gasps, and picks up his pace. He can feel rather than hear Hermann disappearing behind him, and every instinct he has tells him to turn around and run the other way. Every _inch_ he puts between them makes him feel colder and smaller and _scared,_ scared that he won't make it, and, more urgently, scared that the blue space between them is going to snap like a rubber band, and that they’ll both stumble and crack from the recoil. (He knows, already, that this trek through the Shatterdome halls will haunt his dreams for the rest of his life, however long that may be. In blue tinged prophecy he sees the hallways stretching, feels the air turn to treacle and his bones into lead. Hears his name in Hermann's rasping voice and stills, suspended on strings bolted into his heart and his brain.)

 _The bomb. The nuclear bomb. They're gonna set it off and blow themselves up and ruin sea life for eternity if you don't RUN,_ he hears, and it sounds suspiciously like Hermann trying to be soothing. _Shut up, Hermann,_ Newt shoots back, aiming for the Blue, just before he throws himself into LOCCENT, and finds a miraculous supply of air and momentum in order to _yell_ and tackle some fascist away from the microphone. Somehow, Hermann is right behind him. Newt doesn't even question it, and can only babble in relief because _they're not too late._

When Hansen takes back control of the microphone, Newt staggers backwards until he hits another desk and stays there. This is _not_ a drill, this very moment is _it,_ and his eyes are glued to the back of Tendo's head. It's not until he feels Hermann’s hand seize his own that he registers that not all of the fear and adrenaline serving to chop time into milliseconds is his own.

Hermann. Newt can feel how tight his jaw is, and winds their fingers together. When Striker sets off the payload, he stops breathing. _Goodbye sea life and swimming in the Pacific, forever,_ he thinks, body tensing up more. _Please please please succeed._

“Better send out tsunami-warnings,” Hermann growls beside him.

When the pods are recovered and the anxious anticipation turns into basewide cheer, Newt looks at Hermann and Hermann looks at Newt, and both nod and turn simultaneously for the door.

## Mass Appeal

Newt has never been one to give a lot of fucks, not in any sense of the phrase. He could put it down to a lot of things: too busy, too tired, too young, too picky, too preoccupied; lack of mentally compatible partners, lack of empathy, possibly a dot on the asexual spectrum, too much hassle. It’s whatever. Whoever will take him, he’s _said,_ but whoever will take him _as he is,_ was what he _meant._

But, bar stealing another set of pons and bringing them back to Hermann's, _sex_ now seems to be the only logical advancement when Hermann pins Newt against the wall in a dim corridor, using his entire body, and whispers, tone frantic and urgent, “I can't— _Newton,_ I— I can't seem to come close _enough—”_

To the casual observer, it’s probably tired and messy and desperate, not to mention _over_ embarrassingly fast, but with the first press of skin on tattooed skin, the drift flares up again full force, and _fuck,_ Newt could _weep_ with relief, because this, this is fucking _divine,_ this is all he’s always wanted, they're melding, they're _one,_ and maybe, maybe he _is_ sobbing into Hermann's collarbone, that beautiful, beautiful stick of calcium, and Hermann doesn't have to ask why, doesn't have worry, because _he knows,_ and Newt can _feel_ it.

Time as a construct loses its meaning, a universe is born and expands, instantly, infinitely, _blue._ In the far distance, Hermann gasps against Newt's sweaty temple, and celestial bodies collide, collapse, sending waves forth, straining and releasing the very fabric of spacetime.

Quite literally, none of them can tell where _Hermann_ ends, and where _Newton_ begins.

After, the connection fades back to a low hum in the back of their skulls, and they’re sticky and gasping, both shivering from exposure of feverish skin to the cold air of Hermann's quarters.

In a show of inhuman resilience, Hermann manages to dry them off using Newt’s crumpled shirt and drags the blankets over the both of them, before finally collapsing on his side.

“Newton,” he whispers, and Newt, already aching for the blue, rolls over, situating himself into Hermann’s arms, tangling their legs and covering as much of Hermann’s skin with his own as physically possible.

(They never tell you how addictive the drift is.)

“Don’t… tell’nyone I cried,” he slurs. Hermann lets out a breathy laugh against Newt's cheek and pulls him impossibly closer.

“If – _if –_ I were one to, to kiss and tell,” he yawns, drawing lazy patterns between Newt's shoulder blades, “I would feel more inclined to gossip about the _hysterical_ fact that you compared your own climax to the warping of _spacetime._ A concept you, despite recent drift-related events, still manage not to grasp in the slightest.”

“Oh, fuck _off,”_ Newt groans. He places the toes of his left foot atop Hermann's right, and presses them slightly down. Hermann mirrors the pressure with his own toes and buries his face in Newt's neck, lips ghosting over warm skin as he does.

 _“Never,”_ he sighs. Or maybe he says nothing at all. It's real damn hard to tell, because Newt is slipping into warm, dark water, breathing deep and slow. He sleeps—

 

—The bathroom is dark, but Newt is sharp in the mirror’s reflection, the colours of his tattoos clear against the shadows dancing on the wall behind him. He doesn’t remember having night vision. It’s pretty cool, but weird. Newt stares into his own mismatched eyes, then lets his gaze drop to the dark spot on his upper lip. Is that _blood?_  

Something shadow-like moves in the corner of his eye. Newt's blood runs cold. He spins and searches the tiny room, yanks back the shower curtain, but no.

Nothing.

Something is _off,_ though. The room is much tidier than he remembers ever keeping it. He scans the small space, moving only his eyes, and then whirls back around again. _Where are you, you bastard?_

He reaches for the neatly folded washcloth and runs the tap over it. Washes the blood off his face. Yamarashi winks at him.

“Huh,” Newt says.  

He runs an appraising look over his naked body. Arms; two, colourful. Acceptable biceps. Strong fingers, total of ten, good for gripping things. Chest; symmetrical, also colourful, soft. Holds lungs, good for breathing. Has he lost some weight to stress in the last couple of months? Diet: to be reevaluated. Up protein, vegetables, lower intake of caffeine and trans fats. Moving on. Stomach: Colourful. Soft. Kinda nice. Genitals? Eh. They’re genitals. Overall acceptable, generally a pretty weird area. Legs: Two. Strong, sturdy, worth showing off in tight jeans. One foot apiece. Total of ten toes matches the hands - a satisfyingly consistent design. Head: (Saved the best for last, eh?) Home of a rather brilliant brain, if he says so himself. Good for thinking. Two eyes, for seeing, one nose, for smelling things, one mouth, good for kissing, good for eating, good for talking. Singing, too. Facial hair, good for nothing really, can be attractive if taken care of properly. Ears, two, for hearing, and for keeping glasses from slidi— _wait._

_He’s not wearing glasses. He’s not supposed to be able to see without glasses._

Suddenly, it’s there again, the movement in the corner of his eye, and Newt freezes. He can’t breathe. His hands are in the air in front of his chest, sharply outlined, and they’re _shaking._ His skin is crawling, red and yellow background patterns _swirling. Moving._ This is really it, he’s finally lost it, and what _is it with this bathroom, these are not his things! Why is he able to see?!_

His chest burns with the effort of breathing. The low hum of the ventilation system drowns in white noise and a piercing tone. Eyes sting, burn, vision blurs salty. There's a thud and a burning sensation as knees impact on tiles, and he pulls at his hair, hoping to rip the scalp and skull entirely open to release the pressure building up inside. He needs to—needs to breathe, he has to breathe, he’ll die if he doesn't figure out how to _breathe,_ oxygen, in, in, in. It doesn't work, and he’s gonna die, and his glasses, where are his damned glasses, he needs his glasses, and—

 

## God from the Machine

 

 

> [A recording]
> 
> “It… felt okay not to be okay when the world was ending, y’know. Like, like at least I was part of some shit, or, doing something. But now?”
> 
> [A pause. The sound of a beverage being sipped]
> 
> “The world’s still _fucked,_ it’s like people stopped caring because there was no future, and I mean, I get that. But now everything’s worse, 12 fucking years of nobody giving two shits about clean energy or microplastic or, like, poor people. We can’t just end climate change or save the corals by throwing ourselves in front of a bus, and I— … I guess my life’s had its climax already, like, that was it. I’m barely thirty-five, and I’m finished now. Saving the world, there's just no way to top that. I’m a one hit wonder. I don’t— I don’t know where to go, I don’t know how to get down, or, well, come up from this fucking pit, and…”
> 
> [Another pause. A strangled sound.]
> 
> “Hermann, if you’re listening to this, I just want you to know that I am _so_ fucking sorry, I— … This is not your fault, okay? It’s— I’m— you’re gonna go all, ‘But Newton, take your meds and be an adult and we will handle this, I will math a way for you to be normal again’ like you do, except you’d never actually _say_ that, and I … really should call you and let you do that, because if anyone can do it, it’s you, but dude. There’s… there’s never been any _normal_ for me, you know? Like, what even _is_ the fucking baseline in the case of Dr. Geiszler and Mr. Hyde? And anyway, this _is_ different from anything else, I just know it. Sort of. Sort of more weird than usual. I can't _live_ like this. I think … I think, unfortunately, you were right in the end. … Oh for the love of everything, did I really _say_ that?”
> 
> [A long pause.]
> 
> “Hermann. If you’re listening to this, you snooping bastard, then I am alive and well, if not for any other reason than to annoy the living shit out of you. In that case, I’d just like to say, get the _fuck_ out of my audio recordings, okay? Fuck you. I mean, I love you, but you’re literally the worst. _The. Worst._ And you were wrong. I’ll hold you to that, for as long as I live. I’ll remind you of it, every single day. I’ll serve you coffee in the morning and say, ‘Hey, you funky little mathematician, I drifted with a kaiju brain and lived to tell the tale, and so did you, and you were wrong and I was right, so ha. I win.’ That’s how it’s gonna be, you feel me? I know you do. Cause we drifted. That's it. That's the message. Love, Newt, or whatever.”
> 
> [End of recording.]

Newt throws the recorder to the floor, tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling. So that’s a promise, then. _These are lies,_ of course, but Newt can live a lie if he has to. He’s got more than a decade of practice.

He should call Hermann.

Like, really. He should do it right now. It’s literally just to get off his desk chair, unplug his phone from the charger by the bed, and press three buttons. It’s not that hard.

The metal ceiling stares back at him, utterly indifferent.

He should get out of this shoebox.

“What time is it even?” Newt asks out loud. The ceiling, perhaps unsurprisingly, doesn’t reply.

Everything has been slightly off since the drift. Things aren’t where they used to be. The walls - the walls are a shade greyer than they were before. Is it a comedown? Like, from the high of the drift? Newt’s not _sure._

The magnitude of the physical ache that has manifested with a linear correlation to whatever distance put between himself and Hermann has diminished in the last week, by now nothing more than a whispering uneasiness setting in when Hermann leaves the room. The frequency and clarity of the mind-blowing blue bursts of ghost-drift have faded, now only occurring as strands of smoke-like memories that lack the overpowering waves of understanding from before.

The longing has stayed. Just as fresh and agonising as it was the first morning after the drift.

Time is so _slow,_ now. Slow and fuzzy - Newt thinks it has been a week, but he really can’t tell anymore.

Everyone still on base have been drinking a lot and sleeping a lot. Newt has been drinking and sleeping with _Hermann,_ which is maybe the reason why he can’t separate anything into days. Why everything is such a dazed blur of strange and unnerving dreams, murky hallways, and muffled words. Warm moments of hazy passion. The sleeping _with_ Hermann has come just as natural as it did the first time, the both of them seemingly unable to withstand even the separation provided by skin. The amount of free-flowing unauthorised booze being consumed in the Shatterdome has not done much to _heighten_ any inhibitions either.

They haven’t exactly talked about this development, not yet, and while Newt has been used to _thinking_ in love-confessions in between hate-confessions (but it all boils down to the same burning passion, doesn't it?) for years now, he hasn't voiced them yet - except of course for that slip in the recording he just dumped on the floor, but hopefully Hermann will never have to listen to that load of self-destructive disaster babble.

Hermann has not said much either. And that's fine: He is cashing in on what must be the lost sleep of three decades, and unless something or someone is working hard to keep him alert, he tends to drift off more or less anywhere.

In the middle of an important briefing, on what probably was the second day after the war clock stopped, Hermann put his head on Newt's shoulder and slept peacefully through the whole thing. Newt stayed put, and after everyone else had left, Newt wrapped his arms around him, and waited for Hermann to come to on his own. When nothing had happened after a while, Newt kissed him half-conscious and dragged his grumbling  ass back to bed, where he promptly passed out again.

Newt expects him to be awake and not be cranky about it sometime around Halloween this year.

In any case, Hermann sleeping on (and with) him is much preferable to the concerned looks he has begun to send Newt’s way, when he thinks he isn’t looking. Acknowledging these looks would mean acknowledging the cause of them, which is most likely Newt himself, Newt’s lack of energy, Newt’s unnerving and annoying habit of getting strangled and distant and misty-eyed in the middle of any-fucking-thing, Newt’s unraveling depression and social anxiety and bad eating habits, and possibly things he has said while horribly, horribly drunk and doesn’t remember, all of which Newt simply doesn't have the mental energy to address right now. Partly because it is much worse than Hermann thinks.

He can’t shake the feeling of being watched. He can't remember where he has been. Time is distorted, sleep brings only nightmares. Even alert and sober, everything is dull and unfocused, and even the most imminent future contained in the next hour has a dull but uprooting uncertainty to it. He wants nothing more than to return to the rush of the drift.

Suddenly, there’s the sharp, singing noise of something hard being hit repeatedly against steel, and Newt is dragged out of his reverie with the slow realisation that someone is knocking on his door. Knocking with urgency. _Weird._

Getting to his feet is a struggle, it’s as if the air is replaced with water, and his head is filled with fog. Has he been drinking? There’s a cup of coffee on his desk, but he _might have…_ The knocking continues. _Never mind._

Newt drags himself the few steps across the room and opens the heavy door.

“‘Sup.” he says.

There’s Hermann, cane raised, hair standing up oddly, wearing only his old green parka over pajama and slippers. He bursts into Newt’s room, grips him hard around the shoulders and _shakes him,_ eyes wide and confused.

“Newt! Newt. _Newton.”_

Hermann, letting go of Newt’s shoulders, cane clattering to the floor, first grabs Newt’s arms and runs his fingers over the skin of his wrists and lower arms, then his face, turning his head this way and that. Newt lets him, confused and pliant, almost reeling from the warmth of Hermann’s digits pressing into his skin. There’s— there’s the ghost of a blue-tinted memory, small and vague and blurry, but the sensation is making Newt go weak in the knees. His eyes fall shut and he licks his lips, breath sticky in his throat, letting it wash over him; Hermann’s fingers caressing his face, Hermann’s consciousness caressing his _mind,_ yes, _yesss, more. Blurry blue hallway, lab door, stop plate tectonics, well, if only… Newton on the—_

The mindscape disappears abruptly, when Hermann brings him into the present by pulling his glasses off of his nose. He smoothes up one eyelid by placing a warm thumb under Newt’s left eyebrow and pushing upwards, peeks into his eye. He grunts, and, after a few seconds of thorough examination, sags a bit and lets his hands fall to his sides.

“Hermann, what.” Newt asks.

“You’re… fine,” Hermann says weakly.

Newt stares at his slightly blurry face.

“Dude,” he says.

“Don’t do this to me again, Newton,” Hermann interrupts, voice rough with sleep and emotion. He points a thin, shaking finger at Newt’s chest. “I had a— I _know_ it was you. The drift-space bleed-out. You were—”

“I haven’t done _anything,_ I’ve been sitting here all night, man!”

A pulse of anger flares through him. Hermann’s worry, undisguised; suspicion seeping through at the seams. Hermann, always controlling, putting abrupt ends to those soft blue sensations. _Always_ _an obstacle for great things, always in your way, isn’t he?_ Push shove hurt kill bite rip strangle _what the fuck is going on—_

Newt sees his hands already reaching for Hermann’s throat and staggers backwards, curling in on himself. Hermann takes a step forward to follow him, and Newt reaches blindly for the desk chair and swings it in between them. His hands tighten around the armrests, shaking with murderous intent, and Newt can’t place it, but _god,_ he wants to rip something to pieces, maybe a bridge, maybe a human, maybe Hermann’s  face. Anything in his path, anything that moves.

“Stay away from me!” he snarls, and it sounds so _vicious_ in his own ears that he regrets it instantly. The tiny room spins. The ceiling, suddenly wanting part in the action, seems to descend. His heart hammers so fast, he’s gasping, and—

This has happened before, hasn’t it?

Reality clicks back into place.

He is leaning heavily over the chair, head hanging low, level with his pelvis. Still breathing hard, he slowly lifts his head. Without glasses, and with a warm stinging wetness serving to further cloud his vision, it is hard to determine Hermann’s expression. Guy is standing completely still, a dark irregular shape betraying his open-hanging mouth.

“You should… leave,” Newt’s own treacherous mouth spits. It’s not what he wants, though, not in the slightest. _Please don’t go._ _Oh god, please don’t go._

The moment is silent, stretching out.

“Are you… sure about that?” Hermann then asks, cautious, bending down very slowly to pick up his cane. Newt knows this caution from dealing with animals - no sudden movements. It makes him want to scream. When he doesn’t answer, Hermann continues.  “If you truly want me gone, so be it, but I swear to you, Newton, I shall march directly down to the infirmary and explain to them that you are in immediate need of medical attention.”

As he speaks, he advances, and Newt shivers. Shame twists his insides and he wants to curl further in on himself and look away. Only - _he can’t._ Hermann’s hand takes a gentle but firm hold on his chin and forces him to look up, up into Hermann’s face. His eyes shine, and there’s understanding there, wide as the oceans, deep as time.

Or something similarly sappy. It’s true though - it has always been there, Newt just never knew where to look. He has been stupid, apparently. Any understanding born by the drift would origin just there, right behind Hermann’s dark brown eyes. Well, of course.

“So, which is it? Me, or an army of shrinks?” Hermann asks, voice as equally firm and gentle as his fingers, thumb stroking softly at Newt’s jaw.

“That’s what I thought you’d say, you brilliant fucking moron,” Newt blurts out, and screws his eyes shut. The distress he feels is familiar now, human. Not dangerous. Hermann sniffs. Newt pushes the chair away again, and struggles to right himself. He allows himself to be guided over to sit on the bed, and leans heavily into the weight of Hermann settling beside him. “And to answer your question, _both,_ I think.”

“Can the shrinks wait until a reasonable hour?” Hermann asks. It's – _soft._ Soft, but steady, physical. Fixed. Somewhat blue.

“I don’t… know,” Newt admits, digging his arms and face into the warm darkness Hermann’s parka provides. His pulse is still racing, but pressing his cheek against Hermann’s chest and trying to breathe in and out in the same rhythm helps him feel slightly at home in this dimension. His voice is shaky when he says, “Maybe you should tie me down.”

Hermann makes a reluctant sound, halfway between amused and disapproving. He runs his fingers over Newt’s back. “As much as I must admit to having indulged in fantasies of doing just that over the years, this is hardly the time to… Unless you are serious?”

Hermann’s tone changes halfway, from fond disapprovement to measured concern. _Does he get it?_ Newt wonders, burrowing deeper into Hermann’s jacket. He doesn’t want to come out, ever. Maybe he can hide from the things going on in his head in here. Well, maybe _not._ Newt lets out a desperate laugh and presses his face into Hermann’s chest.

“Newton? I need you to come out and talk to me.”

Newt makes a whining sound by way of replying that gets muffled in Hermann’s night shirt. Hermann sighs. He starts shrugging out of his jacket, dragging away the soothing dark warmth, and Newt panics: He’s objectively aware of the ridiculousness of his next move, but there’s no way he’s able to help himself. Pushing away from Hermann, he grabs a hold of the parka and shuffles back into the corner of his bunk, retreating as far into the wall as he can, and covers his face with the green fabric. He doesn’t have to look up to know the way Hermann’s eyebrows are raised in confusion or how the corners of his mouth are dragging downwards.

He doesn’t have to look, because he can feel the mattress shift when Hermann gets up, can hear him shuffle across the room to the door. And Newt totally gets that, it’s absolutely fair; for fuck’s sake, two minutes ago he kinda wanted to _eat_ the guy, so any time Hermann choses to walk out on him is probably already past any point of what Newt deserves. They may have been getting it on for a few days, but that’s no reason for Hermann to accept this level of fucked up. None. It’s been nice, and Newt would much rather have Hermann walk out now than pretending to put up with anything for a while, and then not being there the next time. Absolutely. Much better plan. Also, Newt won’t accidentally eat him, or something. As long as he can keep this filthy jacket for a while, he’ll be fine. _So_ fine. Completely a-okay. And - wait, nope, never mind, is he crying? Yep, he’s crying. Again.

The door falls shut.

Newt chokes out a sob and kinda hates himself for it, then jumps when his mattress moves again. His head snaps to the right, and there’s Hermann, situating himself next to Newt and dragging him back into his arms.

“Wh— didn’t you just leave, man?” Newt says, aiming for casual and hitting _in shambles_ right on the head. Hermann gives a long-suffering sigh and rolls his eyes.

“I went to close the _door,_ Newton, why on Earth would I _leave?”_

“Because— … because I’m me, and you’re you, and that’s what we do? Because for a moment there I thought I might attack you? Because you think I’m annoying as fuck, and you kind of hate my guts?” Newt tries, babbling.

Hermann looks down at him with a serious face, and wipes some incriminating wetness away from Newt's cheek with his thumb. Then he pulls Newt’s head in under his chin, and _clings._

“No,” he says, plainly.

“No, what?” Newt asks weakly. “I _did_ think I’d—”

“No, we’re not only ourselves anymore,” Hermann says. His fingers curl in the fabric of Newt’s shirt. “Hating you is categorically impossible to me. I have the misfortune to concede to quite the opposite. And every _single_ time I let go of you, this post-blue drift space brings me the sensation of your bloody deathwish, and I can’t tell if it is something from the past or a very live connection, but I _will not have it.”_ His grip on Newt tightens desperately, and in turn Newt holds Hermann’s jacket ever closer to his chest. The steadiness in Hermann’s voice is crumbling fast; it occurs to Newt that Hermann may be spinning just as aimlessly in this post-apocalyptic middle-plane of existence as he is.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because truly, he _is._ “You shouldn’t have to deal with my issues, I—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hermann snaps with a hint of desperation. “We have been dealing with each other’s issues, as you call them, for years. And _someone_ has to. _You’re_ obviously not doing it.”

“I was _going to,”_ Newt whispers. “And I was going to get you breakfast in bed for the rest of your life, and brag to you about you being wrong and me being right about my not-dying from the drift. Every day, dude.”

Hermann’s limbs constrict around him, and Newt is slowly beginning not to be able to tell their bodies apart again. He kind of likes that - the K-science division reduced to a single lump of limbs and repressed emotions. Classy. Manly. Something. Hermann kisses the top of his head.

“I find that proposition perfectly agreeable,” he says. “Free breakfast is the one thing it is worth keeping up with your nonsense for.”

“You’re an idiot, Dr. Gottlieb. Where is your sense of self-preservation? Talk about having a deathwish.”

Hermann laughs, and somehow it is the best thing in the whole wide world.

“My self-preservation is tied up in making sure that this idiot biologist I know doesn’t fall out of any windows, or, alternatively, doesn't deep fry his own brain. It’s a full-time job, and I’ve only recently begun collecting the benefits.”

Newt snorts. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. Don’t do it to me, Newton, I couldn’t…” Hermann’s voice finally gives out and loses all its humour. There’s a silence. Newt cranes his head back to look up at him; his eyes are closed, and his jaw is tight. Newt raises a hand and brushes his fingers over Hermann’s cheek. “Couldn’t _bear_ it, if I were to lose you. I despise every second spent away from you. I always have.”

There’s nothing for it. Newt twists and abandons his grip on the jacket, goes for Hermann’s face instead. “Me too,” he whispers and leans in, kissing Hermann’s mouth, scrambling into his lap. Hermann eagerly returns the kiss, and Newt’s mind comes to a quiet halt. The uneasiness, the foggy thoughts, the jittering panic all clear away, and for a while there is just Hermann and himself and a sense of belonging. When they break away, Hermann leans his forehead against Newt’s, fingers of his left hand chasing the skin of his throat and his chin and his lips.

“Tomorrow, we find a doctor,” he mutters. “Get you on your feet again.”

“I think there's a shipment of kaiju samples from Lima arriving that I have to deal with,” Newt says. “But after that, yeah.”

They fall asleep, tangled in each other's arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so infuriatingly much for staying with me all the way through!  
> If you enjoyed this, I'd love to hear from you.


End file.
